So Close
by Zephyr Angel
Summary: Love is the trickiest thing in the world. One has to be mindful and observant. But what will you do if the love that you always thought you have slipped away? Does love expire? For all the SD fans out there. Please R&R! One shot.


"**So Close"**

**DISCLAIMER:** I do not own Slamdunk.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Hey guys! This one shot fanfic is for all the SD fans out there…especially for the RYO-AYA fanatics…this is my Christmas and New Year's gift for all of you…I hope you like it… and please..please….leave a review!!!! I really appreciate it. THANKS TO ALL OF YOU WHO HAVE BEEN CHECKING OUT MY FANFICS FOR ALMOST A YEAR NOW….and thanks for my resident reviewers…who keeps on checking my fanfics and updates…

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I looked outside the window. The dark clouds covered the beautiful sky. Raindrops fall from the heaven as if the gods are lamenting up above. Their tears splatter on the pavement and on the concrete outside.

I feel cold. I feel the cold seeping through my skin, deeper and deeper. I shivered and went into my bed. I wrapped myself with the thick blanket on my bed. I curled and tried to sleep. I closed my eyes for a couple of seconds and then, opened it again. I can't sleep…not with this weather.

I have nothing to do, so I got up, braced myself as the cold breeze enveloped my room, grabbed my laptop, opened it and saw the wallpaper: It was the picture of the whole Shohoku team…on our last day. This picture was taken four years ago. Everyone graduated already, even our freshmen back then, even Hanamichi Sakuragi.

A smile crept on my pale face as I look in his wide smile in the picture. I remember his funny face, that unremarkable red hair of his. He usually calls himself "tensai". But this self – proclaimed genius is really unpredictable. He is really into the sport and I can see that each time he is in the court. I am overwhelmed by his determination and how fast he learns. Within a couple of months, he improved a lot. But this doesn't save him from the pounce of Captain Akagi and my paper fan whacking. How's he now you might ask? Well, he's okay. Being a basketball player suits him very well. He's now a pro-ball player competing in the National League and to my surprise, he's dating Haruko Akagi. I can't help but laugh. HAHAHA! Who could ever think that Haruko Akagi would go out with this red-haired tensai? I remember her telling me her crush was Rukawa…

With that, I looked for Rukawa and found him in the left hand-side of the picture. His raven black hair, tall and lean physique, pale white complexion and beautiful but cold, blank eyes are adored by most girls in our school. I snorted remembering the times whenever he walks through the hallway… girls would swoon, faint or gawk at the sight of him. He's like a drug to these girls especially whenever they see him in the hard court doing some great dunks. They lose their gracefulness and elegance whenever he's around. But indeed, Rukawa is one of the greatest players I've ever met or will ever meet. He's excellent in basketball and his passion for it went a long way ahead. He's now a basketball player slash business man of a multinational company, talk about getting rich. Though he and Sakuragi never got along (I remember their heated arguments and him calling Sakuragi a 'doaho' every now and then) they're on the same team now. Both possess a great talent in basketball. It's a really good thing they've succeeded in reaching their dreams. I heard Rukawa doesn't have a girlfriend until now though many applied for the tedious job with great resumes, still, no one caught his interest. This guy…he's really picky…

I stretched my legs and flexed my arms. I still couldn't sleep. I can't imagine myself musing over my Shohoku days. But I realized I still have those memories of ours fresh in my mind and how…how much basketball and the Shohoku team means to me. It has affected my life…until now.

Moving on, before I start crying over nothing, I stared at my laptop and absent-mindedly focused my attention on a big buff, gorilla-looking man.

_Captain Akagi _I murmured.

His eyes were full of determination and zeal. These eyes are the eyes meant for a great and reliable captain. Despite the years bygone, I can still recall my years with the Shohoku basketball team…I can remember clearly the screeching of shoes, the bouncing of the ball as it touches the ring and into the gym floor, the swooshing of the ball as it touches the ring and into the basket it goes. But all these are nothing compared to Captain Akagi's powerful and demanding voice.

_We will reach the Nationals! _He'd usually say.

With just this statement coming from the captain's mouth, I can see the flare in our players' eyes and it never fails to burn up the thirst and hunger for victory. This is how compelling and influential Takenori Akagi is to our team. But he's not all talk, he's one of the best centers in the league, alongside Jun Uozmi of Ryonan and Toru Hanagata of Shoyo. He sure does have an "animalistic" side when his feet touch the court. His dunks never fail to amaze the crowd. This captain indeed, is the heart of the Shohoku team. After his last year at Shohoku, he'd gone off to college and now, a coach in one of the best team in basketball here in Japan.

I scanned the picture a bit more and my eyes landed in this guy with blue streaks in his black, short-spiked hair. His eyes are reminding me of time bombs ready to explode any second. H e is smug-looking and his lips curved in a crooked smile. I laughed at the sight of our player wearing the #14 jersey, the comeback MVP, Hisashi Mitsui.

The first time I saw this man enter the gym was the time when all he wanted for is revenge to Ryota and to destroy the basketball team with his gang. Hatred and envy, these two surfaced in his eyes that day…The day when we knew that he was a basketball player. He highly regarded Coach Anzai and with this, he repented then, joined our team. After his comeback, the Shohoku team leveled up, our chances of winning were no longer a dream. Though he had a two-year hiatus from playing basketball, he's not rusty and his skills are still immortal, as if he hadn't been away for a long time. His three-point shooting skill is superb. Armed with his will and determination, he is one hell of a player essential for our team's triumph. He now has a family, a loving husband and a father for his twins. He's also the co-owner of a basketball team in the National League. I talked with him yesterday and he told me that Ryota…well…

He's getting married…

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**FLASHBACK**

I was on the phone….

"_How's everybody? Sorry I haven't gone to our past reunions…you know how busy I am with my flowershop…" _

I heard Mitsui's husky voice on the other line…

"_Well, they're okay. Everyone's fine and we're all doing well…How are you?"_

"_I'm great!" _I smiled. _"I missed all of you! How are my twin nieces, Hikaru and Hinami?" _

"_They're fine…they're in school now." _He replied. _"Ayako…the real reason why I called is…uhmm…"_

He paused…for a relatively long time.

"_What is it?" _I asked. But he didn't respond. _"Are you still there, Mitusi-san?"_

"_Y-Yes…" _He croaked. _"Well…it's Ryota."_

"_What about him?" _I asked while my heart beat in excitement at the moment it heard the name…as if waking up in a long, dreamless stupor.

"_Ryota…" _He began. _"He's getting…married."_

**END OF FLASHBACK**

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_He's getting married. _I repeated.

The words deeply cut through my heart. I felt a huge lump on my throat and my heart started to ripple madly. I closed my eyes to prevent the tears from escaping.

_I have to be strong. _I told myself.

I wrapped my arms to my body so that the hole inside me wouldn't feel the strange combination of the pain and the cold. But it wasn't any good. The hole in my heart started to fire and throb in pain. I leaned my head to my bended knees. I feel weak, as if my energy subsided.

_Ryota…Ryota Miyagi. _I mumbled.

I fiddled my laptop and opened a folder named _Restricted _and there, all the pictures of Ryota appeared. These pictures were taken after our every game and some are candid snapshots of him and his plays. Oh, how I love taking hidden shots of him in the hard court. I clicked my favorite photo of him and zoomed to his face. He is cute, actually, with those slightly chinky but extremely gorgeous eyes; his tan skin tone – and to some extent, brawny body – glittering with sweat at the flash of my camera; his curly hair that I love to ruffle when he's messing around. His perfectly curved nose and his lips in a half smile while his jersey draped carelessly over his right shoulder. God, his smile is strangely addictive, not to mention his dazzling face. His happy-go-lucky and carefree personalities are what I adore the most and it reveals whenever I took pictures of him. He is effortlessly graceful. Life is so easy…for this guy.

By just looking at him, I feel so peculiar. There is something in him that really makes my stomach rumble and my world would eventually turn upside down…but in a strange, good way. But talking with him is totally different because I feel awkward and nervous. There's some kind of tickling going on in my heart. And most of the time, I lose my words and forget to speak because he's smiling at me. Yes, I feel this way when I'm around Ryota Miyagi.

But hey, I'm known for being the hard, pushy and aggressive manageress that's why I suppressed all these feelings for him, so none of them even him, would think that I'm absolutely crazy about our point guard. Can you just imagine them knowing?! I'm sure everyone will go berserk and I'm dead.

Ryota is obvious enough about his feelings for me. He would always step his best foot forward to divert my attention to him. If he just knows how I'm dying to cheer him…to kiss him…DAMN! He almost always walk me after practice even if he's already tired, it's as if he hasn't lost energy when he talks with me. Then he would wait for me to enter the gate before walking away as if he's waiting for something more…

A good night's kiss or hug maybe….that I'm gladly and ready to give. But then again, I masked with a different identity and pushed him away…

Pushing Ryota away is what I do best when it comes to responding to his delivered affection to me. Ignoring him and pretending that I don't care are my specialties. I know I'm an IDIOT for doing these to him when what I'm feeling for him is completely otherwise but it's all I can do to stop him and to stop myself from falling for him because I know, in the end, we'll realize we're not compatible for each other. He'll leave me like what my father did to me and my mom. Such reenactment is unforgivable. I want to live a life away from distractions and maybe he also wants the same, so it's better for us to just go through life without getting intimate or involving into a false relationship that we both know will never last.

But as days passed by, doing all these is getting extremely harder to the point that I want to give up and just say to him. "WHAT THE HELL?! WHO CARES?!" Then, embrace him with all my might, kiss him passionately till we both ran out of breath and drop…But I can't…I can't possibly do such heinous things to him…as much as I want to…He keeps looking better, not to mention, cuter every time I look at him or maybe because I like him…whatever it was, my heart started to beat faster as if it's going to explode sooner or later and my stomach squirming and contracting…not that I wanted to go to the restroom…all these in a good way…because. Strange… it felt great…greater than anything I've felt before.

Ryota's courtship lasted throughout my whole stay in Shohoku and throughout these years, I ignored him. Nevertheless, my heart grew fond of him…like he was a magnet or anything…and in the end I realized my feelings for him grew…but I still stuck to my belief "_boys=evil"_ perspective. We graduated and he got an athlete award for being the captain of the basketball team (he replaced Captain Akagi as Shohoku's captain). We both went off to college but in different schools. When he knew that I'm going to another college, he nearly cried and even pleaded. He even accused me of not telling him (not that I'm obliged to) but because I lied…I lied to him for the fact that I don't want to spend the rest of my entire college life with Ryota close by me, walking me home and doodling his name on my notebook…it's not that I don't want to be with him, though I'd said it, but because I don't want this fondness to grow, to mature, to deepen and to evolve into something I know I'll regret later…that thing called LOVE. And if he's around me, I can't concentrate, his presence bothers me like crazy o the point when I sometimes, I even want to kiss him when he's near me…I even grew tired thinking of him every night and constantly sleep in class because I hadn't winked a bit the previous night…

Like now…I really want to have a decent much needed sleep yet I'm thinking of him…déjà vu you might say…so can you blame me when I lied to Ryota? I just wanted to focus on my goals in life without love getting in the way…and I daresay…I indeed regretted that… I regretted everything I've done to him, every single chance that had been there all along…but thanks to my belief, I've passed on it…I didn't know that in the end, I would still be feeling the same feeling for Ryota…I thought it'll be gone because of his absence but I was wrong….wrong from the very start…because it grew, it matured, it deepen, and evolved into love…and I couldn't do anything about it because it's already been established in my heart…

But it's been in such a wrong timing because Ryota's getting married next week…to another girl named Mimiko…I heard she's the daughter of a famous business tycoon. Yes, Ryota's gone a long way now…and me, I'm still stuck here…reminiscing the past I could've changed for my present and future…but it's already too late. Too late to alter everything…and it's all because of my PRIDE. I've lost something really and truly special…I'd let it slip through my very own hands…I've let it go.

I held Ryota's wedding invitation and glanced at the picture…The girl is indeed beautiful, she can even be compared to a goddess…and Ryota, he's simply irresistible. His smile is natural and yet it's aching through my heart. How happy could he probably be with this girl…?

_I closed my eyes and imagined the craziest thing I could imagine right now…_

_I was in that wedding dress…_

_Our hands intertwined…_

_Smiling cheerfully in front of the camera…_

As it sank through me, I realized everything was blurry. My eyes welled up tears and my heart began to swell. Tears came flowing down my cold cheeks as the hole in my heart contract in pain…I can't help but cry…

_I can't stop the tears from flowing…_

_I can't impede my heart from swelling like hell…_

_I can't cover the hole to end the contraction…_

_I just couldn't stop myself from being miserable._

There was a knock on my door… I wiped the tears from my eyes with the sleeves of my sweater. I sniffed to compose myself and pretended to prod over my laptop…

"_Come in" _I quivered.

My mom showed up in her apron…she must be cooking supper…

"_Honey, Kenji's downstairs…" _she told me. _"Are you alright?"_

"_Yes mom." _I replied. _"Tell him, I'll be down in a bit…"_

I smiled reproachfully at my mom to cover my remorse state. I turned off my laptop and ran towards the door…

I was kind of eager to see Kenji…my boyfriend.

As I closed the door, Ryota's wedding invitation fell in the carpeted floor, revealing the picture of Ryota and her fiancée…

And I realized…

_**I was so close…so close from loving Ryota…**_

_Sometimes, we realize to change for the better just when the situation got worse..._

_We realize to finally correct our mistakes just when those mistakes have caused irreversible damage..._

_We finally decided to prove ourselves worthy just when the person whom you want to prove your worth..._

_has already decided that you're not worth it at all..._

_Because most of the best lessons are learned when the test is over....  
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Thanks to all of you! May you all have a very MERRY CHRISTMAS and A HAPPY NEW YEAR! CHEERS! Please read and review! LOVE YOU ALL!

zEpHyR-AnGeL (z.A)


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